Big news! At the end of November I’ll be moving across the country to Berkeley, CA. I’ll be starting a job there at an organization that works to spread public and private awareness of all of the very bad things that are happening in the AI universe. (The organization will go unnamed in this public post, but regardless all opinions expressed here are my own.)

Over the past few years I’ve been following developments in the AI field with a sort of paralyzed doomerish anxiety. The problems are so varied, the public discourse is so messy, and the forces at play are so powerful that it seemed impossible to find a meaningful way to help. I was finally convinced to get over it after a handful of conversations with close friends, reinforced by the stream of news this year of AI psychosis ruining lives, job loss finally appearing in data, increasingly undetectable slop drowning out what was left of the internet, every major AI company taking military contracts, and most having involvement with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Being a long-time skeptic of techno-solutionism, I was excited to find a job coming at these problems from a decidedly political angle. I’ll be building demos to showcase dangerous AI capabilities and working on public and private campaigns to spread awareness with them. I think the organization’s strategy is smart and timely—enough that I’m willing to uproot my life and move to the Bay Area to put my weight behind it, at least for a while.

Sadly, this means the Melodica Drone & Bach Quartet is going on an indefinite hiatus :( On our way out, we’ll be playing two shows. The first is Bach to the Future (November 7-8), a 12-hour Bach marathon in Providence we’ll be joining. The second is our big farewell show, which will be on Friday, November 21 at Mayday in Bushwick. On this auspicious evening we’ll be premiering new works by Elijah Shiffer and our very own Hank Mason, and we’ll be joined by singer Annie Beliveau to perform Cantata 54. I will also be playing the famous chaconne from Bach’s 2nd solo violin partita, and we’ll be playing some of the MDBQ’s greatest hits. I’ll be moving a few days after this show, so consider this my going-away party. I’d love to see you there!

I will also be giving a short talk about AI issues as they relate to artists at this DigiAna event on November 16.

Operations at Nothing to Say will largely continue without change. We have a publication schedule at least through 2026 with more beautiful and innovative poetry works which I can’t wait to announce. Events out of New York will necessarily slow down, but not stop completely.

My own next book, the interminably to-be-released Tao Te Ching chancelation will probably come out some time late 2026. You can actually catch an excerpt of that today in the Fall issue of the Michigan Quarterly Review.

If you’re in NY and you’d like to hang out before I leave, or if you know anyone in the Bay who I should befriend, let me know!

Until next time!
Andrew

Recently read:

  • How to Resist Amazon and Why by Danny Caine — a quick but informative review of the many ways Amazon makes the world worse. I got my copy signed by the author a couple years ago at the Unbound Book Festival and finally got around to it.
  • Thank You for Staying With Me by Bailey Gaylin Moore — essays from a beautiful and difficult life growing up in the Ozarks. Surprised to report that this one made me tear up on the M train.
  • Noise from the Underground by Daniel McKemie — a short collection of textual music scores and reflections. I got my copy at Daniel’s own going away show the other month.
  • Negative Money by Lillian-Yvonne Bertram — amazing poetry. Beautifully lyrical poems occasionally punctuated by surreal third-person self-analysis of the works. It also contains a handful of graphical works that shake up the pace nicely.

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